Theaster Gates
It was at the Corner of Burton and Michigan that I Decided to Love a Light-Skinned Woman or Roof with Beauties, 2013

Artwork Info

Artwork title: It was at the Corner of Burton and Michigan that I Decided to Love a Light-Skinned Woman or Roof with Beauties
Artist name: Theaster Gates
Date created: 2013
Classification: drawing
Medium: wood, roofing paper, rubber, tar, and printed paper
Dimensions: 72 1/2 × 72 13/16 in. (184.15 × 184.94 cm)

Date acquired: 2014
Credit: Collection SFMOMA
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Copyright: © Theaster Gates
Permanent URL: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2014.821
Artwork status: Not on view at this time.

Gates meets us at the corner

Show TranscriptHide Transcript

transcripts

THEASTER GATES:

This is Theaster Gates. I’m an artist in Chicago and my work is called It was at the Corner of Burton and Michigan that I Decided to Love a Light-Skinned Woman or Roof with Beauties.

This painting is made of an asphalt aggregate which is a very basic roofing composite. On top of the piece is a small image that is ripped from an Ebony magazine probably in the early 1950s. It’s a compilation of women who could probably pass as white women, but they’re actually African-American and self-identify as black.

In Chicago, Burton and Michigan is squarely the Gold Coast. It is not far from the Magnificent Mile, which is Michigan Avenue. Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion, the most elaborate mansions of the downtown area. And so Burton and Michigan is not where you would expect to find black people in 1953. But if I were a roofer — if I was the laborer fixing the home of a person who lived on Burton and Michigan unseen on top of a roof, ignored, and peering over, I might be able to see a woman who is an elegant black woman passing. And I would have the ability to know the difference between this woman, separate from other white women.

Read MoreCollapse

The layers of roofing paper, rubber, and tar that cover the surface of this work reference the artist’s father, a roofer and an “anti-activist” who focused on providing for his family during the civil rights movement instead of protesting. Reflecting on this, Gates has said, “My dad and I, we labor differently. Even if we use the same tools. . . . But because of his labor, I don’t have to labor like him: I leverage.” The grid of head shots of nine perfectly coiffed African American women was cut from a 1953 article in Ebony magazine that argues against stereotypes and celebrates the diversity of physical traits and styles.

Gallery text, 2016

Other Works by Theaster Gates

Please note that artwork locations are subject to change, and not all works are on view at all times. If you are planning a visit to SFMOMA to see a specific work of art, we suggest you contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to confirm it will be on view.

Only a portion of SFMOMA's collection is currently online, and the information presented here is subject to revision. Please contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to verify collection holdings and artwork information. If you are interested in receiving a high resolution image of an artwork for educational, scholarly, or publication purposes, please contact us at copyright@sfmoma.org.

This resource is for educational use and its contents may not be reproduced without permission. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.